Residents voice concerns about homeless, storage site plan

Some Sherman Heights residents and business owners say homeless people are making their neighborhood unsafe and filthy, and they’re concerned things will only get worse if the city opens a new storage facility on the southwest corner of Commercial and 22nd streets.

(Howard Lipin)

Gary Warth

Some Sherman Heights residents and business owners say homeless people are making their neighborhood unsafe and filthy, and they’re concerned things will only get worse if the city opens a new facility where homeless people can store their belongings.

“I think most people felt like once again, the city doesn’t care,” said Michele Navarro, whose home is two doors down from the homeless storage center the city of San Diego plans to open this year at 116 20th St.

She and others in the neighborhood complain that the city’s fast-track plan of opening the facility, which could serve up to 1,000 people, was done without input from a community that already is at a breaking point.

Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced a plan to open a storage facility during his January state of the city address, but Sherman Heights residents said they didn’t know it was going to be in their neighborhood until learning about it from news reports a few days later.

The need for such a place is clear. About 1,000 homeless people live downtown, with many transporting their life’s possessions in shopping carts or staying with them all day, afraid to leave their valuables unattended.

Sherman Heights residents say homeless people are creating unsafe conditions in their neighborhood, and they're afraid the city's plan for a storage facility is going to make things worse.

Sherman Heights residents say homeless people are creating unsafe conditions in their neighborhood, and they're afraid the city's plan for a storage facility is going to make things worse.

Since 2011, the Transitional Storage Center on 16th Street has provided some relief by providing bins for 400 homeless people to store their belongings for free, allowing many to attend school, look for jobs or go to work with hope of earning and saving enough to get off the street.

The center, however, is at capacity and usually has a waiting list of more than 100 people.

The next step in the process toward opening the new facility comes at 9 a.m. March 9, when the plan goes before the San Diego Housing Commission. It next would need approval from the City Council.

On Feb. 23, about 100 people filled a Sherman Heights Community Center room for a meeting with city officials, including Jonathan Herrera, Faulconer’s senior adviser on homelessness.

While the intent of the meeting was to learn about plans for the storage facility, Barrio Logan and Sherman Heights residents also shared some horror stories about what their neighborhoods have been like over the past few years.

“Do you think it’s OK to have people shooting up around kids?” one man asked.

“Absolutely not,” Herrera responded.

Another man said he had lived in the neighborhood 60 years, and these days he couldn’t walk to the 99 Cent store to buy soup because of aggressive panhandlers there.

Noel Bishop, principal of Our Lady's School, said he had seen some improvement in the neighborhood, but he believed the storage facility would be an invitation for more homeless people to return.

Some residents said they were sympathetic to homeless families and people down on their luck after losing their jobs, but also said the people they encounter on their streets were of a different ilk. Many were aggressive, openly used drugs and had no respect for other people’s property and homes.

Others said they believed the city had been pushing homeless people from East Village and other areas into their neighborhoods either deliberately or as a result of efforts to clean up parts of downtown.

Herrera said that was not true and told the crowd that the storage facility would not be a shelter, but rather was intended to benefit the neighborhood by keeping things off the street.

“I can understand your frustrations,” he said. “We’re trying to clean up the neighborhood with this.”

Days after the meeting, several residents reiterated the frustrations expressed last Friday.

“As a business owner, it’s just horrible,” said Kurt Krasne, majority owner of Triple K Manufacturing Co. on Commercial Street,

Triple K is a factory that manufactures accessories like holsters for shooting sports and law enforcement, and Krasne said the building has fans that are intended to blow fresh air into the building. Often, however, they are faced in the opposite direction to blow away the smell of urine that’s just outside their doors, he said.

Krasne said he has seen fewer people loitering outside his business in the past six months since posting an official “No trespassing” sign that’s part of a San Diego Police Department enforcement program.

The business’ alley walls, however, are marked with human feces that Krasne said he has been told he cannot wash off because it would disperse into the stormwater system, so he has to wait for a city crew to do the task.

Triple K has been in Barrio Logan since 1987, and Krasne said he’s seen more violent homeless people in the area over the last few years than anytime in the past.

He also said he believes more homeless people will hang around the neighborhood if the storage facility opens because they won’t want to be far from their possessions.

Sherman Heights residents George Blackwood said he lives a mile from Petco Park, but he and his family can’t walk to a ballgame because they encounter so many homeless people in the area. Recently he’s seen a woman relieving herself in the middle of the day on the side of a road, and he said a homeless man chased and spat at his wife while she was riding her bicycle.

Blackwood said he and other residents do what they can to keep their neighborhood clean by going out as a group once or twice a month to pick up litter. He also said that conversations he had with city officials after Friday’s meeting left him encouraged that concerns from residents would be considered if the facility does open.

CAPTION

Proper hygiene — hand-washing with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds after using the bathroom — is sufficient to kill the virus, though alcohol-based hand sanitizer may not be effective.

Proper hygiene — hand-washing with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds after using the bathroom — is sufficient to kill the virus, though alcohol-based hand sanitizer may not be effective.

CAPTION

Proper hygiene — hand-washing with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds after using the bathroom — is sufficient to kill the virus, though alcohol-based hand sanitizer may not be effective.

Proper hygiene — hand-washing with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds after using the bathroom — is sufficient to kill the virus, though alcohol-based hand sanitizer may not be effective.

CAPTION

From San Diego to Sacramento and across the nation, homelessness in urban areas has increasingly presented officials with an intractable problem that often results in a cycle of shuffling people from block to block without any clear long-term solutions.

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CAPTION

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Homeless advocates like Dave Ross, also known as the "Water man" say the epidemic was predictable based on the increase of the homeless population.

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Alpha Project outreach team takes us to the streets as they encourage the homeless to protect themselves by getting Hepetitas A shots.

Alpha Project outreach team takes us to the streets as they encourage the homeless to protect themselves by getting Hepetitas A shots.

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The eighth installment of editorial cartoonist Steve Breen's homeless portrait project. Holly L. is 63 years old and from St. Augustine.

The eighth installment of editorial cartoonist Steve Breen's homeless portrait project. Holly L. is 63 years old and from St. Augustine.